Boom boom.... sound of the metal door shutting resonates thru the narrow corridor. You are in ward @#, the forensic psychiatric ward. The patients here have done something wrong and will be charged in court. You wait for security to clear you, and pass in thru the locked door. The cop brings you the patient for you to interview.

You nervously arrange yourselves in a horse-shoe around him... make the tentative small-talk and start the clerking. Midway, you notice the paper clip on the table and realise that small as it is, it can lacerate ur carotid. You imagine what might happen and signal to the tall friend on ur right to remove it from the table before the patient gets any farnie ideas. Then you realise that he can do the same thing with the pilot v5 pen that the gal who's right beside him is holding. Then you look at the size of that forearm and realise that he doesn't actually need a pen at all.

Then you look at your friend and try to remember what you like about her, and the 4+years of friendship that had developed... You recall with a bit of nostalgia the dissection of the indian dude in the anat hall as another colleague tastes that dead bit of flesh that accidentally gone flung off... You recall the times when you get scolded for not knowing this and that cos you happened to use a diff anat text from the Profs... You remember that you had to do stupid powerpoint presentations together for some picky anat tutor... You remember drawing blood and setting plug on each other and wasting a lot of AH's resources as you kop stuff from their store to figure out what they were used for.... You remember...

But actually there is little need to do so... The patients in there are sedated, and most are your average joes who suddenly develops a bad temper or hears voices telling them to run through a protected area to stop a tank or plane and ask for help from the ghosts that haunt them. The patient never feared the guns and turrets that were trained on him when he leisurely strolled through the army base. But i bet the guards must have thought that he was a suicide bomber or something and wet themselves.

Another dude who is 55 told us that he played soccer with 20 malay boys at the void deck, smoked with them but didn't drink. Police came cos there was too much noise and he was arrested after he got angry at a policeman who told his mum to go somewhere in chinese (ahem, his mum was not around). Got arrested cos he was 55 and the rest were under 16, and also because he was the only chinese there. I forgot to ask if this happened in Malaysia... oh wait... it was in Singapore! In the car, he told the cops that he could take their gun and shoot them even though he was handcuffed... so the cops got really really scared that the old man at the back might actually do it, and decided to give him the 2nd charge, the 1st being disturbance of public peace.

Had a history of going to the Bermuda Triangle to be a cook for one year. He said it was a british colony that had a lot of blacks. Had to return cos his brother who went with him got addicted to gambling. Said his relationship with his wife was good. No $ prob. Sleep only 5 hrs a day, felt more happy recently but no flight of ideas or pressure of speech or grandiose delusions, or easy distractibility. No family history, no medical or drug history. Never felt sad apart from over his dad's death some 30 years back.

I wanted it to be schiz cos that would be so cool... I wanted to find out what magic powers his 20 frens had, and whether he could still see himself as he entered the bermuda triangle... aren't there a lot of ship wrecks there? And ooh... did he really go with a brother? or is that brother the one that the rest of the family never talks to, never acknowledges, never ask about... has never seen... the one that always comes home with a bit of blood on the shirt... no, he says not him, it's the brother's shirt, his stains... (no, i am imagining it)

Turned out to be Bipolar.... the 20 frens and the triangle thing was actually real.. the sis said so... unless there is some fun family condition going on. There was separation from his wife, financial losses, 3 hrs of sleep a day, and the story of him giving treats to all his newfound friends... things we couldn't get from our history.

I wish to thank that cop out there for his help in keeping singapore safe from all the dangerous, handcuffed old men out there in the backseat of police-cars, and for having a sense of humour, and the common sense to realise that the old man was probably joking. Thank you for not venting your frustrations and taking your issues and repressed childhood feelings out on the old folks and and serving them charges. Thank you for overcoming the sense of insecurity and the fact that you never got hugged by your mum and dad. You are a wonderful cop. I wish you and your mum the best. Dun worry, i won't tell her to go anywhere... pls dun charge me.